glass coffin
by Nygmatech
Summary: Snakes typically shed their skin a few times per year. Godric supposes he just hasn't noticed yet. Slytherin/Gryffindor, character death


_(A/N: As you are reading, you may notice that these scenes are all out of order—this is how I wrote them, and how they are intended to be read. The roman numerals correspond to how each scene would be placed chronologically, however._

_This was done for Round 1 of the "Speed of Lightning" Competition on the HPFC.)_

glass coffin

**xi.**

The day Salazar Slytherin dies is the day Godric loses himself.

But they don't talk about that, anymore, and Rowena and Helga run the school instead like a well-oiled machine.

And life moves on.

**xiii.**

"I thought you might like to see him," Rowena says, her voice quiet and her blind prophet's eyes turned up to his face.

And Godric nods, too choked to say anything and feeling too sick to _look_ at her. At him.

Salazar's body is laid out on the bed, dressed all in robes of emerald-incrusted white, royal and dignified like all he deserves.

"He is in a state of suspension," Rowena explains quietly, and Godric jumps as she settles a light hand on his shoulder. "He is neither dead nor alive, as the best I could do was preserve him in the middle. I thought it best, to let those who wish it pay their respects."

Godric moves slowly, as if underwater, until he is kneeling at the bedside, and if he _really_ tries, he can fool himself into thinking Salazar's eyelashes are fluttering, his chest rising for breath.

"Hello, my friend," he says, and sits down at the edge of the bed. It is possibly the hardest thing he has ever done. Reaches a hand out to cup Salazar's jaw, his fingers caressing the pale white skin where it stretches over his cheekbones, and he brushes a lock of silky black hair out of the other man's eyes. His skin is so cold.

Godric's hand moves up to his own neck, to unfasten the crimson cape there, spread it over Salazar's body. "You always complain," he says, and his voice cracks, "about the cold."

"He cannot hear you," Rowena reminds him gently, and the reality of it all washes over him, and he buries his face in Salazar's chest, holding onto him for dear life, and hopes the sobs racking his body aren't as obvious as he knows they are.

"Forgive me, love."

Rowena closes the door softly behind herself.

**iv.**

"Godric, let go," Salazar complains impatiently, tugging at the arms circled around his waist, to no avail. The other man's laughter tickles his ear, and Salazar colours and flinches away. "Really now, we are to be late for our students if we keep this up! Godric, are you listening to me?"

"A few more minutes," he reasons, and nuzzles the back of Salazar's neck affectionately.

Salazar would have hit him, had he been at an angle to do so.

"No, not a _few more minutes_, you big oaf, let go! What if—what if someone walks in and sees us like this?"

"Then let them," Godric said sleepily, his bright blue eyes sliding open, his yawn like a lion's roar. "Let the whole world see us. Wizards don't have the same taboos as your kind, my _Prince. _It is fine. It is _all_ fine."

Salazar is too taken aback to respond, and Godric takes advantage of the moment to pin the other man more effectively to the bed, dropping lazy, slow kisses to his lips.

Salazar can _almost_ say that he doesn't mind.

But they are still going to be late.

**ii.**

Rowena's uncle left her a castle when he died—and it's a very nice castle, too, with the added bonus of being extremely close to Hogsmeade, the largest wizard settling in Britain. It would be the perfect place, Godric, Rowena, and Helga agree, for a school. A magic school to educate the wizard children in the ways of their powers and how to use them.

But they have a fourth endorser as well, Godric learns from Rowena who learns from Helga. They say he is interested in teaching, that he has some of the most powerful magic they have ever seen, that Godric will like him.

And Godric is pleased enough with that—an even number. Good things, he thinks, come in fours. He can't think of any right now, but there is a feeling in the back of his head that makes him confident of it.

When he sets eyes on Salazar Slytherin, he cannot shake the feeling that there is something all too familiar about him, in his and snow-white skin and raven-black hair, in the deep green cape that hangs regally off of his shoulders, in his emerald eyes that leave Godric entranced.

"Pleasure," Godric says, and bows low over Salazar's hand, the smile of his lips barely brushing the back of it.

The other man even has the decency to look surprised.

(Four is also the number of a crossroads.)

**viii.**

Nevermind the fact that he is only playing into Salazar's trap, putty in his hands.

And he decides, one more night, as the ornate leather armour slides from his lover's body like snakeskin, to lay, crumpled, on the cold stone floors of Salazar's dungeon bedroom. As he spreads his hands over Godric's shoulder blades, pulling their bodies as close as possible, Godric's skin hot and flushed and Salazar's cool and dry.

"Why?"

"Because I love you," he whispers before the end, and Godric closes his eyes.

He almost believes him.

**iii.**

And as time goes by, things change. They drift closer together some days, and farther apart others. Godric has learned not to try to anticipate these things.

He is surprised, albeit pleasantly, then, when Salazar takes his hands, green eyes the most intense he has ever seen them, and says, "_Godric._"

Godric has never, would never, not with another man. But perhaps he can make an exception for Slytherin in all the serpentine beauty that seems to belong to him and him alone.

**i.**

It is well known that Godric Gryffindor is the most skilled fighter in Hogsmeade; nay, in all of wizard Britain. He dresses himself like a knight and carries himself with all the chivalry and dignity of one. He is handsome and kind and intelligent, so it isn't much of a surprise that when he spars in the town center with all the other fighters of the village, the crowd is flocked with giggling maidens, vying to see if they can catch the eye of the most sought-after man in this part of the land.

They never do.

Except then, for once—there is another person, a man, who comes to watch, sitting high on his horse with poise that can belong only to someone of royal descent. But there are no wizarding nobility, so he must be born of a non-magical line, which is very curious, because even at a distance, Godric can feel the power of him.

He is a pretty little thing, snow-white skin and raven-black hair swept back from his high forehead. He turns his head, looks at Godric with eyes the colour of glittering emeralds, and Godric finds himself caught there, trapped by the stranger's gaze until, in a clatter of hooves, he is gone.

He does not come back again.

**xiv.**

But he is reluctant to let Salazar go, feeling that maybe, _maybe_ if he tries hard enough, he will wake up. But real life does not work like that, and he also knows in his heart that if he lets him really truly die, nothing will matter.

**vii.**

And he really can't help that he's pulling away from Salazar now, because thinking is a dangerous pastime. And when he thinks, he begins to doubt. Salazar is beautiful and witty but always doomed to live his life in the dark. It is merely how nature works; Salazar is a creature of the shadows, and Godric of the light.

He supplants his company with Rowena and Helga, then, and begins to make excuses as to why he is busy this day and that—he does not mean to hurt Salazar. It merely happens.

"Why do you love them, and not me?" he demands once, emerald eyes glinting and dangerous as he has backed Godric into a corner. "You come not for my urging it, you stay not for my urging it, and the next I catch wind of, you are spending all your time frolicking about in other parts of the castle with Rowena and Helga!"

And he is so very sorry, all at once, even as he knows he shouldn't be.

Powerful sorcery clouds the mind as quickly as the senses. He knows what Salazar is doing. He is too in love not to know.

**vi.**

The students of each new term bring whispers with them, tiny fragments of gossip from all over the continent—one Godric finds interesting in particular is that of a non-magical prince, son of Queen Laufey, banished from his kingdom somewhere far up north for practicing magic a few years past.

He looks at Salazar over the table with a critical eye, and remembers the legends and fairy tales he was told as a child.

Remembers _Loki, God of Lies, appearing as both J_ö_tunn(monster) and _Æ_sir(divine). He who's child is a snake and will one day break his chains to lead in war against the Gods_.

Godric watches Salazar, and he thinks.

**ix.**

"You lied," Godric accuses, clenching his teeth and balling his hands into fists.

Salazar practically sneers back at him, shedding his skin like the snakes he holds so dearly as he steps into the light.

"Really? What was your first hint? The giant serpent living under the castle?"

**xii.**

They find him sitting at the base of the willow tree by the great lake the morning after the fight, frozen to death and covered in frost, snakes of all size and variety coiling over his body, hissing at anyone who gets close. Godric thinks he understands, because they grow still and silent as he grows close, watching him with careful eyes as he kneels down next to Salazar's corpse.

"I am going to take him now."

As if some unspoken command, they slither off into the snow. Half of them won't make it back to the forest alive.

But it is the thought that counts.

**x.**

"You lied to _me_, Salazar!"

"I lied to everyone."

**xv.**

"You cannot keep him forever, Godric."

**v.**

"Do you think," Salazar begins one day, his head heavy on Godric's shoulder, "that we will ever be happy?"

"Do _you?_" Godric asks him instead. Salazar closes his eyes.

"No."

"Hush," Godric says, and kisses him.


End file.
